Advice regarding cycle racks for caravanners
Hi all, I’ve just decided to get a bike in order to get some exercise, so I’d like to take it with me when we go away. I tow an Elddis Affinity (dealer special) with a Volvo XC60. Roof bars is obviously one option but I’m knocking on a bit, fairly short and the car roof is quite high so the risk of damage to car, bike or self is quite high. Thule do a tailgate mounted rack but it’s pretty expensive and I don’t want to shell out and find it’s not compatible with my set up, bikes fouling the front of the van or whatever. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Answers
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Get folding bike and put it in car.
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I am also vertically challenged at 5' 8" and have never liked the idea of lifting a 30 lb bike up onto the car roof. We have travelled for 25 years with bikes on the rear and front of 5 Eriba caravans. All you need is common sense when loading to ensure your nose weight is correct. I would advise looking at a Thule Superb A frame mounted carrier
Colin
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Dog, awning, bbq, charcoal, etc etc already in car. (Plus wife, of course)
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Need to keep a close eye on MTPLM with A frame carriers. The carrier its self is not light and a bike is between 10kg and 25kg depending on battery assist and size. Two bikes and a carrier can easily add up to 50kg, all of which needs to come from your payload.
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The roof rack is the best place for weight distribution, but can be impractical for shorter older people with taller cars, which seems to rule you out as it would for me.
The first problem with a boot mounted rack could be room. To see if anything fouls it or is just in the way you need to check the system will fit with room to spare, but this is difficult unless you might find a dealer who can demonstrate it to see if there is any obvious problem. You do also have to watch the weight of the frame and bikes to make sure that you are not overloading the back axle. It does not affect the nose weight for the tow bar however unless you buy one that mounts on it.
I very much doubt if the nose weight of the caravan can be reduced enough for an A frame mounted carrier with out moving a lot of weight to the rear which can be dangerous and it does use up a lot of your payload allowance. It would almost certainly require upgrading the MTPLM, but that may be easily done if you are buying new.
You could possibly look at a rear mounted rack which would solve the problem, although some loading adjustments could be needed to get the nose weight right. I am not sure how easy this is though although the dealer can probably help. Swift do build mounting points into their caravans, which might make them a better option though.
Not an easy answer as all solution have drawbacks and compromise may be needed.
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I'm safe on MTPLM. Basic van weighs 1010kg, with all factory extras and cycle carrier it is around 1100kg. I have a1500kg axle and fully loaded for 6 weeks with bikes typically run at around 1350kg.
Colin
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I have seen a bike rack which is loaded at ground level and then slides up onto the roof of the car with the bikes on their side. No idea what the name is but always thought it a good idea.
David
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@meridienmick it depends what type of bike you have or are purchasing. It is hard to lift a heavy piece of kit such as an electric bike, up onto a room rack especially if you are of a short stature. I used a set of steps to put my mountain bike onto the rack of my XC60 but it required decent balance and I doubt that I could manage it these days.
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we have an XC60 and have the roof mounted cycle rack as I find that’s the best place for the bike when travelling plus it can be left up there if just stopping at a site for 1 night. It does take two of us to lift the bike up and I use the caravan step as it is quite a high roofed car
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It's so van dependent. Lots of the continental vans have much higher provision for payload (and indeed for A-frame carriers) than UK vans. There is no way we could get bikes and a carrier onto our Bailey…
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I have one of thee lifting racks lying unused as it does not left high enough for use on my Discovery. So I just climb up onto the roof and pull the bike up with a length of rope.
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The following won't really help meridienmick but may be useful info for anyone else contemplating getting a heavy E-Bike.
Unfortunately, I don't think you can fit a bike rack to the A frame of an Elddis as the frame will be too short. When we were thinking of buying E-bikes, we had to change our Elddis 362 for a suitable van. The only one we liked was the Bailey Discovery D4-2. I think all the Discoveries have long A frames. We could have had a Basecamp, and fitted them inside, or got ourselves a continental van, such as an Eriba. Many continental vans seem to have the long A frame suitable for a bike rack. Since our E-bikes are heavy at 20+ kg each without the battery, and then add the weight of the rack, we had to upgrade the weight for the D4-2 to cope. We met someone else who had to upgrade their Basecamp allowance for the same reason. The next problem we had was that our bikes are quite long wheelbase, and have very fat tyres (Reise & Muller for anyone interested) and the rack from Thule has had to be heavily modified to suit. This entailed new rails from, Fiamma, a folding ramp from Ateca (I think), because neither Thule nor Fiamma supply suitable ramps, and a new supporting frame for the rails (made by local stainless steel welders) to replace much of the Thule system as the bikes wobbled to much for comfort on the Thule system.
The Thule car towball rack weighs about 16 kg itself, and the rails are wide enough, and just long enough for our bikes, and oddly in view of previous comments, you can buy a suitable ramp - a godsend for saving backs.
If anyone wants, I will put up some pictures and a few more details of what I have bought / done for the van rack.
The Basecamp owners tied down their car towball rack to the floor of the van, and then fastened the bikes to the rack as if it was on the back of the car.
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